


The Protector Of The Realms

by hentailobster



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Drinking, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 12:38:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18778450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hentailobster/pseuds/hentailobster
Summary: Based on @peterssquill on tongueler's woke ass idea about endgame, in which Thor instead of locking himself up and drinking goes through something a bit more similar to what Clint did and basically what I'm trying to say is fuck marvel lives we run this show now





	The Protector Of The Realms

After Thanos Thor can’t stay still. Can’t even sit down for long. He’s restless, he craves a fight he’ll never get, because Thanos is _gone._ It’s all over. 

 

Steve holds a speech, of sorts. He tells them they need to help the world move on, help each other move on. His voice keeps cracking, and after a while Thor can’t bear it anymore. For the whole thing he’s been standing, and now he slips out of the room, walks out of the compound and leaves the grounds by foot. Stormbreaker hasn’t left his hand since the garden. It’s heavy in his hand, a reminder of everything he’s done wrong. A sentence playing over and over in his mind. 

 

_”You should have gone for the head”_

 

Thor wants to cry. He has, he did for hours after the snap, but it seems he’s out of tears for now. His dry eyes look straight ahead, at the road stretching out before him. It’s dusty. There’s dust everywhere and Thor wants it to rain away, but the rain won’t come. There’s not even any wind. The world is frozen, as still as a photograph, and it’s all because of him. Him, who swore to protect the nine realms, even before he really knew what that meant. 

 

 

 

He drinks for three days, and finally starts to feel a blissful numbness replace the pain. There are no bars for him to go to, since everything is closed nowadays, but there’s plenty of alcohol to be found elsewhere. Locked store doors aren’t exactly a problem for him, and no one around him minds. It’s not often, but now and then people pass him by wherever he’s sitting. In a park, by the shore or, like right now, in an alley he doesn’t know where it is exactly. 

 

A woman walks into it, and she doesn’t seem to notice him. Nor does the man following her. Thor watches the two through a haze, as he gets way too close to her. Even in his state, Thor recognizes what’s happening when the man hits her and her pained cry echoes through the alley. It’s like a punch in the gut, and without even thinking, Thor stands up. The man notices him and says something that he doesn’t hear. Everything is drowned out by blood pounding in his ears. 

 

_It’s not fair._

 

This man is alive. He’s still alive to do awful things while billions of innocents are dead. Out of everyone that could have been spared Thor’s mistakes, this man survived. 

 

_It’s not fair._

 

He still has stormbreaker with him, but he doesn’t use it. It stays where he’d been sitting, as he walks up to the man slowly, but steadily. He has to fight to keep his breathing steady and his voice calm as he tells the man to leave the woman alone, to no avail. The man just says that it’s none of his business. That he should go back to drinking and leave the two alone, all the while the woman looks between him and Thor with frightened eyes. 

 

The man stops talking when Thor grabs him by the throat. 

 

 

 

After that he stops drinking. The numbness fades, leaving him with hot fury seeping through his veins, so unlike the lightning he’s used to. Thor has always killed people. He learned to do it when he was young and put his greatest skill to good use to help his father. Then, he’d use a weapon, now he only uses his hands. Stormbreaker gets heavier, and harder to use, but he doesn’t need it anyway. He’s strong, and humans are so very, very fragile. It doesn’t matter how many goons they hide behind, how much money they have to spend, how much they offer him. His mistakes cost billions their lives, and taking the lives of others seems to be the best way to protect those who are left. And there’s that restlessness. He still can’t stay still, he keeps moving, going through armed men one by one as he works his way through the skyscraper. The human trafficker he’s after tries to jump out of the window when Thor finally catches up to him, but Thor is not letting him get away so easily. He’s finishing the job himself, no matter what. 

 

The human trafficker whose name Thor has probably heard at some point, but can’t be bothered to remember ends up going through the window after all, but not by his own decision. And not until after Thor has killed him. He lands with a satisfying crunch and Thor jumps after, wincing as the landing breaks something in his leg. Whatever. It’ll heal quickly. What’s more troubling are the two figures waiting for him down on the street. Rocket looks unimpressed. Hulk looks shocked and it looks like he’s wearing a shirt, which is weird. It’s been a few years since they last saw each other, of course. And apparently, in that time, they’ve come up with something. 

 

There might be a solution, Hulk-Bruce promises. If Thor would just come home. 

 

 

 

And he does. And he hates it. 

 

The compound hasn’t changed. It’s too cramped and he has to stay with the rest of the team to figure out where in the past the stones are hiding. He doesn’t say much, because he already has a sneaking suspicion of where he’s going to end up. 

 

Asgard in 2013. Jane. His parents. His brother. He wants to be happy to get to see them again, but he can’t find the energy for it. He can’t find any energy whatsoever. Tony and Rocket want him to power up the machine, and he has to explain that he can’t. Hasn’t been able to for years. He tells them he doesn’t know why and they just accept it and figure something else out and then they’re off. All of them for missions that simply cannot fail. 

 

Rocket goes with Thor, and it’s probably for the best, because the moment he steps into the halls of his old home he feels like he’s suffocating. The golden pillars are too bright. The sounds of the people, _his_ people, are deafening, even from so far away. As he and Rocket sneak through the cells he can’t even bear to look at Loki, and for the first time in five years he feels a lump starting to form in his throat. 

 

By the time he sees Frigga his tears are falling. They roll down his cheeks and he can’t stop them, but can’t bring himself to cry properly either. His face is frozen like a mask, and no matter what Rocket says his focus keeps slipping away. He wants to help. He wants to find the stone so they can get everyone back, but he _can’t._

 

Suddenly, he realizes he’s been standing still for a long time, and that Rocket has given up on trying to get him to come along.The rabbit is gone, and he’s left alone, in halls he would have called his a lifetime ago. His mother notices him. Of course she does. And she instantly knows he’s not himself. Not the man he was in 2013, and certainly not the son she knows. He wants to warn her of what’s coming, but she refuses to listen. She brushes some of his hair out of his face, revealing his missing eye properly. He’s lost his prosthetic somewhere and now there’s just a scar, forever reminding him of Hela. That’s right. He wants to ask Frigga about her, too. If she knew and why she didn’t tell him or Loki. But there’s no time. Rocket comes back, tells him they need to go and Thor finally wipes his tears. 

 

The idea is crazy. He doesn’t know why he does it, but he reaches out. Somewhere out there, he can feel mjolnir and he wills it to him. Calls to it, as he’s done so many times. 

 

It doesn’t respond. 

 

 

 

They all come back to the compound at the designated time. All of them except for Natasha. Clint is crying. He does it as he appears and as he hands over the stone, and he keeps crying after. Thor cries as well, finally. They all cry, but they can’t stop now. They need to do what they’ve promised to do. They need to finish their mission. 

 

And they do. And for a second Thor feels relief. 

 

And then all hell breaks loose. 

 

So many of them are buried under the rubble that was once the compound, and Thor wants to help, but then Thanos appears. How and why doesn’t matter. What matters is that he’s there. Thor’s grip on stormbreaker loosens. It falls to the ground and Steve calls it to him as if it was the easiest thing in the world. Thor would think it over, had he been able to focus on anything but the rage washing over him in a completely fresh wave. But then comes something else. A spark. 

 

The air crackles. Booms of thunder split the sounds of battle, drowning out even the sounds of the bombs falling from the ships over them. Lightning creeps up Thor’s arms like snakes. It’s not the anger he’s grown used to. It’s something he can’t quite place. Cold and focused, like the edge of a knife. 

 

Once, he swore to his father to protect the nine realms, long before he actually knew what that meant. And after that, he’s failed time and time again. But as long as he’s alive, he can still try and right his wrongs. Do right by his mother, who would have never wanted him to end up like his sister. Do right by his brother, who could have been better but never got the chance to. Do right for the people he failed. 

 

With a cry that sounds more like thunder than anything human, he charges. 

**Author's Note:**

> marvel answer my calls challenge 2019 (also feedback is greatly appreciated)


End file.
